Drivel du jour

Here's my latest from today's Isthmus:

Rock the system
Billy Bragg takes on the powers that be on the Tell Us the Truth Tour

Billy Bragg wishes he could be home to protest when President Bush pays a state visit to Great Britain the week after next. "The balls of the man to come here!" says Bragg on the phone from London. "Sadly, I'll be in America, but I'll be able to watch it from your side."

The folk-punk singer, he of the celebrated pique, arrives as part of the Tell Us the Truth Tour, and he thinks the worst dissembling these days comes from the White House. "The Tell Us the Truth Tour is trying to make a point of explaining why it is that 70% of Americans think that Saddam Hussein was responsible for Sept. 11," says Bragg.

The tour kicks off at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7, at the Orpheum Theatre, and joining Bragg there are the Chambers Brothers' Lester Chambers and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, who performs as the Nightwatchman. The Madison concert is part of the National Conference on Media Reform, whose organizers aim to challenge an increasingly monolithic American media. Says Bragg, "We feel that the lack of a diversity of views in the media � consolidation, particularly in the radio industry in the last few years, since the FCC changed the rules of media ownership � has led to a monopolization of views." The tour is scheduled to hit 13 cities and ends Nov. 24 in Washington, D.C.

Steve Earle joins the tour Nov. 16 in Atlanta, and Nov. 19 brings the musicians to Miami, where trade ministers are gathering to discuss the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Globalization also angers Bragg, and he thinks it's linked to media consolidation. "The free-market agenda is the consolidation agenda," he says. "What globalization means is the breaking down of rights."

Although lately Bragg has played with bands like Wilco, he made his name singing with only his electric guitar as accompaniment. That's what he'll be doing at the Orpheum, and Morello and Chambers also will play solo. "There'll be songs, there'll be comments, there'll be a bit of tabling," says Bragg. "If you want to participate in politics, that'll be there. If you want to have a beer and sing along, that'll be there, too."

Bragg is excited to tour with Chambers, who with the Chambers Brothers charted 1960s hits like "Time Has Come Today." Asked about Chambers, Bragg croons a few bars of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," which the Chambers Brothers famously recorded, and adds, "I picked up my politics and my worldview from the American civil rights movement, and the work the Chambers Brothers did in that area puts me in deep respect of Lester and what he's done."

The Tell Us the Truth Tour organizers approached Bragg after he had already planned a U.S. tour. "Someone said we could link this [Madison conference] up with the FTAA meeting in Miami and make an activist tour," he says. "I'm always up for a bit of that. I'm Billy Bragg" (24).

Another celebrity dream

I think I blogged earlier about how excited I am when celebrities appear in my dreams. Last night's sighting was very special, indeed: I showed up at Woody Allen's apartment in Manhattan because we were supposed to catch a movie together. On our way to the movie, he ditched me. Bet this won't show up in his memoir.

Regrets, I may have had a few

How I loathe what we should go ahead and call the Trent Lott formula of contrition. A classic of the genre was uttered yesterday by Howard Dean, who, you'll recall, caught hell for cultivating the votes of people who put Confederate flags on their vehicles. He said in reponse, "I deeply regret the pain that I may have caused."

All he had to do was omit the words "may" and "have," and he would have sounded sincere rather than, well, like a politician.

An editorial in today's New York Times wonders whether he'll be able to survive imbroglios the way Bill Clinton did. The very comparison makes me shudder. I feel a case of preemptive Dean fatigue coming on.

Honkytonkin' 'round this town

I can't remember who I've shared it with, so if you haven't heard it, check out this rough mix of the Junkers playing my song "Custom Van" at their final Luther's appearance last spring. It's a prevue of our upcoming live album.

Two kinds of ice cream

I just want you to know, I feel happy and content about my life right now and where it seems to be going.

That's bad for the songwriter in me, and good for the me in me.